Falling Slowly
by Trinity Destler
Summary: She doesn't understand his motives and it bothers her how little that bothers her.
1. Dinner

Falling Slowly

It may not have been the longest case of her entire career, but it certainly _felt_ like the longest case she had ever worked and Gibbs had finally (thank God, _finally_) released them with a few dismissive gestures and some morale-boosting grunts of positive reinforcement before disappearing into the elevator. She knew he was probably headed towards too much booze and hours alone brooding over his boat, but she could no longer summon the energy to worry about Gibbs; everything she had left was on reserve for making it home to the glass of wine and the hot bath she'd been promising herself.

And so, when she tracked a slight impact on the crown of her head as she bent to gather her things to a thrown paper aeroplane, she found herself torn between total resignation and a murderous rage. Neither had yet won out as she raised her head to look across the office at her partner and he met her accusing gaze with a smile that was warm and tired and only a little goofy. An irrepressible wave of fondness washed over her and transformed her thunderous frown into a half-hearted pout.

Tony mimed unfolding motions and nodded encouragement, that damn endearing look only heightened by his wrinkled shirt and mildly dishevelled hair.

She turned her frown on the paper projectile, bending to retrieve it from the floor and spreading it open on her desk. As she smoothed its creases, she uncovered a note written in Tony's familiar loopy handwriting. It was pretty in abstract, but hard to read. She squinted at the sloped, top-heavy letters.

_'Hungry? I am._

_'A.'_

Why did he sign with an _A_?

She lifted her head to raise an eyebrow at him but startled to find he had crossed the office and was leaning on her desk. She wondered if she would ever get used to that habit of his, only marginally less annoying than the similar- but more sinister- habit Gibbs made of materialising behind them in the instant they least wanted him to be there.

"What do you say to some hearty Italian home cooking, Agent Todd?" He smiled again and the twinkle of genuine friendliness in his eyes and the obvious enthusiasm of his grin made the exhaustion disappear from his face. She thought of the eye bags that had been staring back from her reflection since over a day ago and, not for the first time, envied him the resilience of his beauty under fire.

"I know the number for Domino's too, Tony," she quipped, feeling spiteful.

He rolled his eyes, playing innocent as always, "Funny, Kate, but I meant mine."

"You? Cook?" She grinned.

He was unperturbed, cheerfully rolling onto his heels and sliding his hands into his pockets, "I have gourmet taste and a fast food salary."

"You have terrible taste." She made a face, recalling some of the decidedly less than healthful and frankly disturbing substances she'd seen him consume.

Now _he_ pouted, "So quick to judge! I'll have you know, refuelling for highly stressful investigative work requires the nutritional finesse, caloric diversity, and high density carbohydrates only sausage and extra cheese can provide."

Kate sniffed, neatening her desk as she finished packing her purse and stowing her pistol in its holster. "I didn't think you knew what a carbohydrate _was_."

"I majored in Phys Ed, Kate; it's a science degree. Did you think we studied advanced swirly technique and arm wrestling between football games?"

She looked up at his- rarely used- deadpan tone and felt a little wounded to be on the receiving end of his more vicious sarcasm. He usually saved that for perps and arguments about the case.

Recognising he'd gotten too testy by the offended curve of her lip, he rushed to fill the silence, "And I'm a Rockefeller, you recall, and here you've never mined my depths of hidden sophistication. If you come to dinner I could show you the famous family charm, and I just, you know, figured you'd be tired with the case and all-"

"_Very_ well hidden," she interrupted, needing to put him in his place.

He rolled his eyes, but he was more smiling than not. "You coming to dinner or what?"

"Sure," she grinned toothily. "If you get take out alone again, your delivery guy will probably stage an intervention. I don't want to be there when Gibbs gets _that_ call."

"Cute," he commended dryly.

This was how it worked with them. They could be friends and be nice to each other, but only after Gibbs had beat them up and the case had held over to the point of exhaustion and they had each carefully admitted that they had no better plans. Or any plans. Tony always bluffed until called on it, and then cheerfully acknowledged her jabs about his lonely evening were completely correct. She usually tried to make up excuses, she wasn't as blasé about being caught in loserhood by him as he was by her. She had a superior reputation to maintain, after all.

It was an unspoken pact that they would never admit these things, nor leave in each other's company in front of McGee. McGee was not to know that the cool kids were all talk. Or that they were nice to each other outside of ganging up on him.

Kate honestly couldn't tell you why they could not admit to each other or anyone else that they genuinely liked one another, but for some reason they couldn't. It just wasn't done. Warmth was only acceptable on days like this one, after dark, in solitude. The sibling rivalry Gibbs cultivated- and that they all took to as fish to water- dissipated like so much hot air. They were adults again, free to have an intelligent conversation without either of them pretending that Tony was dense or that Kate was a prude.

Although.

Tony had never invited her to his home before. He had never been to hers. They were people who compartmentalised. She didn't even bring dates home and she had the fairly solid conviction that he didn't either. They needed sanctuary. It was the first thing she had recognised in him that she completely understood.

It scared her suddenly, how alike they were in their broad generalities. But now Tony wanted her to come into his sanctuary and to cook for her, a skill he'd never made the slightest intimation he possessed and therefore nothing he needed to prove. In sum, she had no idea what his motives were and it bothered her how little it bothered her; not to mention how little it bothered her that his tired green eyes and crooked smile filled her with a sense of belonging.

He tapped the small of her back when he'd finished grabbing his things and his hand lingered a moment as they fell into step. The touch felt hot and sharp, hyper-real. Kate was aware of his physical presence like an aura, sensing his solid mass beside her, feeling mildly oppressed by his height. His hand slid away as they turned the corner towards the elevator and she looked up at him, her eyes barely level with his shoulder.

Sometimes she missed the secret service dress code. Boots may be more practical, but she'd kill for some really serious heels in a moment like this.

"Tony," she started, wondering if she were really going to go so far as to open up discussion of their relationship. A subject they seemed to have silently mutually agreed was best left as free from examination as humanly possible. "Why are you cooking for me?"

He didn't look at her, his eyes travelled across the elevator ceiling as if he were reading something up there, "I thought it'd be nice."

Annoyed by his utter casualness when she felt as if some enormous sea change were under way, she huffed and crossed her arms. "I see."

Tony laughed.

They took his car, Kate's was still at her apartment where he'd picked her up at three in the morning several days before. Tony had been catching up on paperwork at the Navy Yard when the call came in. No wonder he was so unhinged. She started to question whether he and Gibbs _ever_ slept or if bad food and worse coffee had turned them into human perpetual motion machines.

The drive consisted mainly of an argument about the radio station eventually resulting in the agreement that radio basically sucked across the board. Then the CDs came out and she ended up listening to Tony sing along to Frank Sinatra, which she minded much less than she pretended she did. The old music and the lights sliding by creating an atmosphere of nostalgia that was at once so bitter-sweet and so comforting, she caught her eyes welling up.

She was just tired, she told herself, it was just the somnolence of looking out the window into the haze of darkness interspersed with flickering lights and listening to Tony's smooth tenor, whispering harmony to Ol' Blue Eyes. It was just that she was reminded of long, sleepy car rides with her father and his rat pack cassettes. It was just that she hadn't been home in a long, long time.

It was just that her life was so consumed by her job that she had no one else to spend an evening with than a co-worker who felt like a kid brother.

Except that he wasn't really like a kid or like a brother and her awareness of that fact was becoming increasingly acute.

This was why they couldn't be nice to one another, why they had to pick and poke and prod until they were both nearly insane. Why they had to act like twelve year-olds. Gibbs encouraged it by pitting them against each other for his approval, but the childishness, the meanness of it, was all their own doing.

From day one, she'd decided to have Tony absolutely pegged, that way she knew how to deal with him and put him safely in his little box. He was off limits. He could not be romanticised or given second chances, he could not be allowed to get away with anything, he would get the same beat-downs she'd given her brothers. Tony, ever so helpfully, made it easy to judge him and abuse him by living down to her most vapid generalisations. He was a genius at that. He could play in to almost any assumption and enjoy it thoroughly as long as there was a frustrated responsible person to shake their head at him. He was at least fifty percent bullshit, but she prided herself on her ability to detect which fifty.

She watched him driving, his eyes sweeping the road ahead, his full lips moving slightly as he mumbled along with the music and his right hand floating up from the stick shift to fiddle with his collar, now running through his hair as he glanced at his reflection in the rear-view mirror, and finally back down to change gears. She smiled to herself.

He _was_ simple, immature, vain; he was correctly categorised as a non-threat. She was worrying over nothing. There was no grand intent behind the evening, it was just a gesture he'd probably ruin at the end with some pitiful double entendre and a playful, totally insincere pass. No need to get frazzled. Tony was not deep, he did not plan ahead.

She was safe.

Kate jerked awake to Tony's hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, hey, sleeping beauty." He grinned at her teasingly, "I hate to tell you this, Katie, but you snore like a-"

He didn't get to make a clever analogy, because she punched him, hard.

"Ow!" Tony shot her a wounded glare, clutching his arm, "You just totally blew your chances of getting carried upstairs."

Kate scoffed and rolled her eyes as she pushed her door open and stretched her legs. They were in a small underground parking garage with card access. She shouldn't have expected any less for Tony's most prized possession.

The apartment building itself was only a few stories, obviously pretty old, with no intercoms or security doors. There was a desk in the lobby manned by an ancient guard reading a newspaper. He peered over the edge of it as they approached.

"Anthony," he saluted with his index finger.

"Ernie," Tony saluted back. He turned and wiggled his eyebrows at her before looping her arm through his and leading her towards the elevator. More elevators. Kate wondered if there were something in the structure itself which encouraged occupants to tell the truth or if it were just the power of association after sharing a ride in one with Gibbs.

Tony unlocked his door with somewhat less than his usual grace, his habitually quick, elegant fingers fumbling briefly over his keys. It was the first time since they'd left the Navy Yard that she remembered he had to be just as tired as she was, probably much more. He didn't let it show.

She followed him through the door with mild trepidation, half expecting to be beset by pungent odours and to hear the scrabbling of cockroaches the size of rats. She'd formed ideas about how a Tony DiNozzo lived at home. Somewhat anticlimactically for her well-developed mental image, they stepped into a perfectly neat, if somewhat sparsely decorated, bachelor apartment. The floors were all bare wood and tile, the only furniture in the living room a deep, black leather sofa, a cheap coffee table, and one hideous arm chair she could only assume had been pilfered from a frat house somewhere in Ohio. There was the predictable huge television and, equally predictable, every wall was covered in bookshelves and at least half of them were full of DVDs. Less predictable was that the other half was full of genuine, word-filled books, and some of those spines were awfully thick.

Tony left her to gawk and pry without a word, puttering in the tiny kitchen. He came back with two very generous glasses of wine.

"Congratulations," he said handing her one, "we survived another case with Gibbs."

"I'll drink to that." She smiled and they clinked glasses before taking long, grateful sips. Feeling three hundred percent better with a little red warming its way down her throat, Kate decided she was in a tweaking mood. "So where is it?"

Tony swallowed his toast, "Where's what?"

"Your collection!" She spread her arms, "Snapshots from the glory days, trophies, old college balls, your frat paddle, the beer helmet; where is it? I mean I guess it was naïve of me to think you could just have the shrine in the living room and not some dedicated area with climate control and special lighting."

He just watched her, patiently amused, "Is that it or have you got more?"

"I think I was done at trophies but the momentum kind of carried me." Kate was giggling uncontrollably, "I half pictured one of those cliché high school rooms in like an eighties sitcom. With team colours pined up and the baseball jersey in a frame."

Tony shook his head, "Baseball was never really my sport."

She sobered, sensing something off about his tone. It wouldn't be unheard of, when they were like this- having dinner together, being nice to each other- to sincerely ask him what the matter was, but she didn't feel brave enough to do it. She was feeling vulnerable and forthright and now he was stripping his weapon and putting it away and the flex of his broad shoulders and the attractive taper of his waist was proving a little hypnotic...

Nope. Get a grip, Caitlin.

"Here," Tony held out a hand to her and for a moment she stood flushed and dumbstruck. Catching up, she crossed his palm with her sig sauer. She wasn't really fit to be holding a loaded weapon at the moment, anyway.

He gave her an amused half-smile as he pulled the clip and checked the chamber. "You're really running on fumes, aren't you, Katie? I don't think I've ever seen you this beat."

"It'd help if you'd feed me, DiNozzo." She headed for the breakfast bar that split the kitchen from the living room and plunked herself down on a stool. "I'm waiting."

He pointed at her and made a popping sound with his mouth, "On it."

Much to her entertainment, apparently when Tony cooked, he danced around his kitchen, juggling ingredients, knives, and pans, singing to himself, "Cooking with Kaaate, where iiis the cream, nevermind I fooound it-"

"What are we having?"

"Chicken and vermicelli in sun-dried tomato and basil cream sauce," this in his best hoity-toity tone. He paused mid-chop, "Shit, I just realised, I don't really have the right wine for this."

Kate was giggling again.

Tony pointed the knife at her, "Look, these things matter. A lot."

"Sure they do."

"When you're a Rockefeller, Kate," Tony started chopping again, but his lecturing tone conveyed total, ridiculous seriousness, "wine is like seven months of extensive, boot camp level training. I have a Pavlovian response."

She just sat, staring at him, "Are you being serious right now? Is this you being serious?"

"Absolutely," he put water on to boil, "I had a manners tutor when my mother was alive."

Kate thought she was going to die, or fall off her stool, or something. She hadn't laughed so hard in years. When she got her breath back and wiped away the tears, Tony was pouting at her again.

"It's true, you know."

"I'm sorry, Tony," she bit her lip but the giggles kept coming, "it's just..."

"Yeah, yeah," he smiled and it was unusually sweet for him. "I am perfectly capable of showing off my fancy rich-people etiquette, I just choose not to."

She ran her finger around the lip of her wine glass, feeling wonderfully comfortable, "Why not?"

He shrugged, then shooed her hand away and refilled her glass, "Most people I spend time with now wouldn't be into that kind of thing."

"I would!" Kate felt slighted that he didn't think she was worth the effort. Just because she would have turned him down flat, she didn't see why he couldn't have tried the famous charm on her. All she got were leers and comments just sexist enough to provoke anger instead of flattery. Now that she thought of it, she resented she'd never been the 'new girl' even when she was; why didn't she rate a thousand watt smile and a corny line? It would have been so satisfying to snark one directly instead of as a spectator.

"Nah," Tony was intent on slicing the chicken and missed her indignant expression. "You would have found that patronising coming from a senior agent."

"No," she started, annoyed that he thought he had her figured out.

"Yes," he drawled, "remember what you thought of Tom McAllister before you knew he worked on his own planes and walked on water or whatever?"

Speaking of patronising, Kate made a face. "Jealous?"

"Of course. He took you to New York just to have dinner, I'm still hurt you left me behind." Tony stopped stirring his sauce and met her eyes for a moment, "Whatever happened to you and him, anyway? Was he not Catholic?"

Kate spun her wine, watching the red liquid trail down the sides of the glass, "It just didn't work out."

"Are you going to give me a reason or are you prepared for me to find out on my own, because you know I will find out. And I won't take the easy road and just call Abby, either. I like a challenge, Kate." Though this promise to invade her privacy would usually have had her jumping down his throat, she was so relaxed all she saw in it was a bizarre attempt to cheer her up. Only Tony.

"It was not exciting or scandalous," she admitted with a sigh, "it was just after the case ended and we had a few dates I realised... he was kind of boring. He was so nice and accommodating I felt like I was going out with a _ma__î__t__re d'_ or something."

He grinned at her, "See, I knew I was right not to use my powers of etiquette on you."

"Tony, one thing I would never, ever accuse you of is being boring." She paused, thinking of his many lecures about movies, "Actually..."

He cut her off with an expansive gesture, "Eh, eh, before you ruin the mood: dinner is served! Go sit down."

Kate took her place at one end of the small dinner table under the kitchen's only window. He'd set the table properly and she smiled to see her silverware laid out so precisely. She never bothered with the niceties living alone and she hadn't been home to a family meal in years. Tony put her dinner down between the cutlery; it was in a deep pasta plate, steaming noodles with the chicken arranged in crossing strips, sauce smothering all and basil leaves to garnish. It looked and smelled divine and she had to admit, she was impressed.

Seating himself across from her, Tony raised his wine in salute, "_Buon appetito._"

If it smelled good, it tasted an order of magnitude better. She found herself groaning aloud in ecstasy and flushed with embarrassment. Kate was only grateful she hadn't teased him more about his cooking, she would not have liked to follow something so tasty with a whole lot of crow.

Tony was grinning at her, but she was feeling magnanimous enough to ignore his smugness.

"Your tutor teach you to cook, too?" she asked, by way of compliment without inflating his ego any more than it already was.

He shook his head, "It's not really one of the tender sciences, if you catch my drift. Not for boys, anyway. No, I just spent a lot of time in the kitchen with the cooks growing up and... yeah. I can really only make three dishes, but it seems impressive until you've had them all." He smiled wryly.

"It's a lovely dinner, Tony. Thank-you."

He looked so boyish when he was awkward, she always almost forgot who she was talking to and often had to fight the temptation to praise him more, just to see him squirm.

"No problem," he said, so quietly it was practically a hum.

The next moment she fully registered, she felt curiously weightless and, blinking in attempt to clear her head, eventually realised she was staring at the under side of Tony's chin. She was being carried.

"Wha-?" she inquired.

He glanced down at her, surprised to find her eyes open, "We were talking, you started getting quiet and suddenly you're almost passing out face-first into your vermicelli. I figured it was the better part of valour to intervene. If that's a chauvinist pig thing you can yell at me tomorrow, but right now I'm going to carry you to the couch and then I'm going to bed. If I weren't so tired I'm sure I'd have a cheesy line perfect for the situation, but... the old wheels aren't turning so good. Hope you're not disappointed."

She giggled to herself, "No, no."

He laid her down gently on the soft leather of the oversized sofa and pulled a quilt up to her chin. "Good night, Kate."

She curled her fingers in his collar as he made to stand and tugged him back down, "Very, very good night, Tony." And the kiss with which she followed the words insisted upon itself, her lips pressed into his warmly and wetly, allowing no room for misinterpretation, no illusion of chasteness, no opening for it to be excused away.

Some full ten seconds later, Tony straightened up, breaking the contact. He hesitated briefly, but her eyes were too glazed with sleep to fully register his expression.

"Good night, Katie," he repeated, soft as a sigh.


	2. Breakfast

_AN: This was really a oneshot, but I had an image of the morning after and I figured I might as well go ahead. If I write any more of this it'll start to have an actual plot. lol_

.

Kate woke feeling as if she had been asleep for weeks, pleasantly muddy-headed and comfortably cocooned in blankets hot with her insulated body heat. Even better, her soft, warm world was invaded only by the drifting smells of some wonderful soul brewing coffee and cooking bacon. It took some time for her hazy, contented brain to recognise that this benevolent being could only be Tony and that Tony cooking her breakfast after a night alone with him, in his apartment, was probably not a contingency she should have allowed to arise. In fact, she seemed to recall it was the first item on her list of things that Must Never Ever Happen. That it had was clearly his fault.

Still. He _was_ making her breakfast when it happened to be the thing she wanted most in the world, and for this he was forever guaranteed a spot on Kate's Christmas list.

Besides, it had been a totally innocent sleep-over. Even if she was pretty sure she no longer had any intention of keeping it that way.

She didn't bother to open her eyes, lying in wait as quiet footsteps approached the couch and the heavenly coffee-smell wafted up from right under her nose.

"Wakey, wakey-" he was nauseatingly cheerful in that smarmy way of his, the one that made you want to hit him even though he hadn't done anything yet. He claimed to be a night owl, but in her experience, he was either awake, disgustingly upbeat, and missing nothing or he was passed out in a puddle of drool at his desk. There was nothing in-between, no matter what time it was.

"Tony, if the words 'eggs and bakey' cross your lips, I swear I will kick you so hard."

"Well if it isn't little miss sunshine," he said, in a faux-offended tone. "Aren't you supposed to be a morning person?"

"I usually am," she opened her eyes a crack at a time and saw him perched above her on the edge of the beat-up coffee table. He looked clean and slightly damp, clearly having just come out of the shower. She had never seen his hair without product in it before; it was lighter in both texture and colour, fanning out from his head in natural, fluffy waves. He leant over her, smiling at her squinting expression and offering a cup of coffee, the smell of the brew mixing with the fresh, spicy scent of his aftershave.

She blinked a few more times, her eyes adjusting, "Is it even still morning? I feel like I've been sleeping for days."

"It's morning as long as you only just woke up. It's a rule." Tony's smile was unusually approachable; he was adorably softened by his unstyled hair and the well-washed, oversized t-shirt he wore which shrank his large frame in its ample folds. He looked smaller and younger than the puffed up, poised, and primped DiNozzo of the Navy Yard and, off his feet, he wasn't even annoying her with his height. The wave of goodwill he'd already cultivated that morning became a tsunami of affection she could find no excuse to suppress.

"Should I tell Gibbs about that one?" she arched an eyebrow, daring him to dare her.

Tony was not intimidated by the spectre of their boss this remark conjured, "It probably already has a number."

The openness of his manner sparked something in her memory of the night before, something she wouldn't ordinarily ask about (asking him _real_ questions was generally a frustrating exercise in futility), but her current contented lack of animosity could see no reason not to at least try to indulge her curiosity, "How come your doorman calls you Anthony?"

His eyebrows lifted at the non-sequitur, but he didn't hesitate to answer, "'S my name, isn't it?"

"Yeah," she granted, sitting up a bit as he handed her the coffee, "but no one ever calls you that. Except Ducky."

He grinned, probably recalling how the dotty-but-brilliant pathologist had so worried over the team's long haul this past case that he'd quietly bullied Gibbs off the warpath until he gave them time to order pizza. "It's a British thing. They don't abbreviate."

She thought about it.

_You know, Caitlin... To Abigail please, Mr Palmer... And where is Timothy __today?_

"I never thought about it," she sipped her coffee, "Maybe it's just a Ducky thing, not a nationality thing."

"There's a correlation," Tony insisted, shaking his head. "If you're 'of an age', at least. My mother was English, and the one time we spent Christmas with her family it was like being in a Merchant-Ivory. Everybody was Alexandra-" he rolled his 'R' theatrically and elongated his vowels "-and Jonathan and Michael. Nobody was ever Alex or John or Mike. I'm generalising, and they were kind of snobs anyway, but _I _have seen a pattern and- as we know- I am the centre of the universe."

"But why do you always introduce yourself as Anthony and then ask people to call you Tony?" He had almost distracted her from the question, but not quite.

"It's my name." He repeated, with a dismissive shrug.

Sensing that the conversation was now over and apparently a real answer was above her DiNozzo clearance, she just smiled at the minor victory of having backed him into a corner. "I guess so."

Tony leaned back, running his hands over his thighs, "Well, that bacon smells done..."

"In a minute," Kate sat up, "first I really wanted to know... why did you do this for me? I mean, dinner, wine, breakfast...?"

"You're my partner, Kate," he said light-heartedly, making to rise. "It's my job to look after you."

Her hand on his wrist held him in place, "That's all?" She gave him a sceptical look, "You'd do the same for McGee?"

Tony looked solemn, "Sure I would."

She stared him down from beneath arched eyebrows, "Really."

"I'd drive him home. Maybe order him a pizza. If he got shot or something."

Kate giggled.

He slid out of her grip and turned her hand into his, squeezing gently, "Why does there have to be a master plan? I can't just do something nice for you? The rumours aren't true, you know, I'm a nice guy."

"Sometimes you are," she admitted, still laughing a bit, her eyes sparkling, "but not like this."

He leaned closer, stage whispering, "Like what?"

She was starting to seriously question the wisdom of pushing this until it became a real conversation, because now he was very, very close to her and she could see the flecks of grey in his marsh-green eyes. She was ignoring that she could feel the soft, smooth skin of his palm against her hand while the rougher tips of his fingers tickled her wrist. "This is personal."

He made a show of looking off to one side and furrowing his brow, as though he were thinking hard, "We've shared how many hotel suites and cars and desks and bathrooms for how many hundreds of hours, and _this _is personal? Kate," he paused significantly, "you've _seen me naked_."

"Not until now," she was blushing fiercely, but she was determined to remain in control. She would not kick him in the chest and pretend it was his fault she was uncomfortable (her usual reaction when his gravitational field of attractiveness got to be almost too much to resist). "This is your _home_."

His expression was strangely blank, but in a way not intended to conceal something beneath it- in a way that suggested his muscles didn't know how to convey his mood; eyes slightly wide and mouth relaxed and neutral, "Not really."

"You're not joking about this, are you? Tony, I'm really trying-"

"No, honestly," his free hand held up in the stop gesture, "I just sleep here. Home is..."

"The Navy Yard? A state of mind? What?"

He gave her a little grin, "I probably stole this from a movie, but, it's still true. Maybe even extra true. For me- right now- home is the job, not the physical place, the calling. The people. You know? Don't tell... _anyone_ I said that. Except Abby, I guess. I'm pretty sure she knows already."

Kate touched him gently, her fingers tracing his jawline, "But this is your sanctuary."

"I guess." he looked around, "No one's been here but Gibbs."

"And me."

"And you."

"So thanks," she kissed his cheek, and his flesh against her lips seemed burning hot. She lingered there, inhaling his scent; aftershave and shampoo and fresh laundry. Barely breaking contact, she turned her head to meet his eyes. They stared at one another a long moment, both of them thinking, weighing, then they crashed together.

The kiss was fierce, open-mouthed and close-gripped. Her arms were folded as tightly around him as possible with the distance still between them, a distance he maintained with his body even as his fingers tangled in her hair and pulled her mouth closer. Tony was now hovering half-way between the couch and the coffee table, supporting his weight with one hand spread on the cushion beside her, indecision palpable in the raised tendons of his forearm.

He pulled slightly away from the kiss, "Kate."

Her reply was more an exhalation than a coherent word and she tried to bring him back, touching his cupid's bow with the tip of her tongue.

His eyes shifted focus back and forth between both of hers, minute distress evident in his brow at her lack of response to what he apparently considered an adequate question. "Why is this happening?"

She made a slight purr in the back of her throat, "Why not?"

His hand on her clavicle held her back, "See, ordinarily, I would find that a totally awesome response, but you're Caitlin Todd... at least, you look like her, and that's got me a little worried."

Kate sank back into the couch, but grabbed his fingers before he could withdraw his extended hand, toying with them as she tried to play the coquette. She didn't have much practise at it, usually a guy was more than ready by the time she deigned to let things progress to this point. She had a schedule that kept things well in her control without her needing to exert any wiles. "What's to worry?"

"Well," Tony cocked his head, "there's the possibility that _you'll _wake up and try to kill me, there's the possibility that you'll tell Abby and _she'll_ try to kill me, or- and this is pretty much certain either way- _Gibbs _will instinctively know the second he sees me and will _succeed_ in killing me."

"Scared?"

He frowned at her, "A little. These are uncharted waters, Katie."

She saw something real in the melodramatic expression, that he was genuinely uncomfortable, that he was genuinely afraid, "Tony..."

"I mean..." he cleared his throat, "Kate, I mean... is this going to be a real thing or... because if it's not, I kind of think we should go to opposite corners, compartmentalise, and pretend it never got this far."

Kate still didn't let go of his hand, her grip steady and firm. "What if it is real?"

He met her eyes with the most serious, sincere communication she had ever seen in his outside of a life or death situation, "Then I'm willing to risk it if you are."

She kissed him again, roughly and briefly, then pulled back, "And rule twelve?"

"Technically," he returned the kiss, panting as they parted, "it's in opposition to official NCIS policy."

"Yeah?" her hand slid inside the stretched neck of his t-shirt, gliding over his trapezius, his shoulder blade, curling down his back and tracing the cleft of his spine. She shivered when the muscles twitched beneath her fingers.

"Yeah," his voice unsteady, "and I'm pretty sure the Director still considers himself the highest authority..."

She buried her face in his neck, "That's weak, DiNozzo."

"I'm a little distracted," he justified, affronted.

"'Spose."

They grinned at each other, but Tony pulled away and stood up, "Breakfast."

Kate pouted, wrapping her blankets around her shoulders as she trailed after him into the kitchen. "I'm hurt you remembered food at a time like this."

"Katie, you are definitely delicious," he plucked a piece of bacon from the pan and chewed as he set the table, "but you just can't compete with the hammy, fatty, heart-attacky goodness of bacon."

She rubbed her stomach, "Not sure I want any now."

He flicked her ear on his way past and she swatted at him. Suddenly convulsed with giggles when he stuck his tongue out at her, Kate realised she was deliriously happy, sinfully contented, that ache and strain she had felt in her chest soothed away. It was replaced by expanding fondness as she again watched Tony whirl around his kitchen, cooking for her, this time nothing more complicated than fried eggs and cheese, but it meant as much to her as his gourmet meal had done. She wasn't alone, didn't need to be strong, not at the moment. For the first time in many years, she remembered how nice it was to have someone look after you. She never let anyone do it, too wary, too dependant on the illusion of control. But this was her partner and she'd do the same for him.

This was her partner and she finally saw that she had nothing to prove to him.

Tony, laying out the last of the food, sat across from her at the little table, his long legs so invading her space that she just put her feet up on his knees.

"Tony?" she rolled her eyes up to him, he was drinking hot chocolate with his pinky out (his fingers didn't all fit through the mug handle) in a hilariously unaffected, endearing manner. Sometimes she forgot he didn't actually like the taste of coffee.

"Yesssss?" he sang, sorting his breakfast into piles with the tines of a salad fork.

"Remember all those times I told you to grow up?"

He looked up, all wide-eyed innocence, waiting for the hammer to fall, "Maybe."

She kissed her finger and leaned across the table to press it to his lips, "I take it back."


End file.
